


The Woman's Return

by theredheadinadress



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, NSFW, alternative season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 16:10:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1611302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredheadinadress/pseuds/theredheadinadress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following Moriaty's 'return' Sherlock invites Irene Adler back to London. AU Se4?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Woman's Return

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea for a while and wanted to run with it this evening. I do ave exams and so I needed to finish it within a few hours and as such may not be my finest work.

_London. Come at once. - SH_

_I thought your specific instructions were ‘No London under any circumstance’ ;) - IA_

_Plans change. - SH_

_And leave my new life just for you? You are presumptuous - SH_

_Please just come. - SH_

_You said please? Gosh must be serious. - IA_

_St Pancras Renaissance Hotel. Reservation is under a Sigerson Wolfe. - SH_

_I am capable of making my own reservations you know - IA_

_Woman. If I left it to you you’d be sleeping in my bed - SH_

_‘Sleeping’ isn’t the term I’d use no - IA_

 

It was the longest text conversation they’d had. Usually Irene would text him and Sherlock would ignore them until he needed confirmation of her whereabouts when he went to see her. However, with Moriaty potentially having returned, he needed her in Woman, her past insight into Moriaty’s dealings could be potentially helpful and besides having her in London meant he could watch over her. If Moriaty could raise from the dead, there was no way of knowing whether he knew about Irene’s survival or not. Sherlock needed her in London, although he’d never go as far to admit that. 

 

She doesn’t like bowing down to anybody’s wishes and much prefers to keep people waiting. However, there is something different about Sherlock’s demands; for a start he is the one who had initiated the conversation. Something which he rarely did unless it was serious, namely his resurrection. Where he had texted her one line ‘I’m not dead, let’s have dinner’ before turning up at her door in New York City. They had not spoken since he had come to her, a fortnight after his ‘death’ from St Barts, he hadn’t stayed long, only long enough to get what little information she had on Jim Moriaty and deal with one of Moriaty’s prized hit men in a crowded New York subway. However, it had been a long enough stay to have sex and to leave her feeling momentarily stunned at his eagerness and his improvement since Karachi. 

 

She returns to London, not just because she missed him or because he called but because her new life had been beginning to bore her. New York was interesting enough, but it wasn’t nearly as much fun as it would be had she been allowed to misbehave. She’d missed London, she almost felt nostalgic as she got off the train at St. Pancras, having flown directly to Paris before getting the Eurostar to London, in order to avoid Mycroft’s prying eyes at Heathrow. She presumed Sherlock wouldn’t have told his brother about her survival and she wasn’t willing to be unlawfully detained if she was caught at Heathrow if it turned out he hadn’t. Thus she donned a disguise, albeit a loose one, and used her new American passport to enter the country of her birth. 

 

*

 

_ I’m bored. - IA  _

_ I checked in as Ana Wolfe, I hope you don’t mind - IA  _

_ I’m thinking of going shopping at Harrods…. -IA _

_ Not now Woman. Do not leave the hotel - SH _

_ But I’m bored Sherlock -IA _

 

She’s only half joking when she texts him. She is bored, for she doesn’t like waiting and being called and not catered for immediately after her arrival, and she does like to antagonise him to no end. He arrives 4 hours after she had checked in at the Hotel and uses his own key he’d gotten from reception to open the door. She’s not surprised that he’s finally here, or that he has his own key; she merely looks up from where she’s lounging, on a cream ornate sofa by the large window, where she’s been reading War and Peace in its native Russian. He notes her choice of reading materials immediately, he hadn’t realised she could speak Russian, before she turns the corner of the page over to mark her place and places the novel down on the mahogany side table. 

 

“Care to enlighten me on why it was so necessary for me toreturn to London Mr Holmes?” She completely dismisses ordinary greetings, despite the fact it has been three years since their last intimate exchange, and gets right in to business. 

Sherlock smirks at her question and he leaves her waiting as it takes off his coat, throwing it over one of the matching arm chairs by the door. Before responding, he studies her, she is still as unreadable as ever, but he does recognise the change in her body shape, she’s gained weight, not obviously so, only to him. She’s healthier than the pale stick thin woman he’d stayed with back in New York.

 

“Moriaty has returned.” He admits truthfully.

 

Irene swallowed her own fear at his words and masked her emotions. “I thought he was dead.”

“Yes.” 

“Oh.” Irene smirked slightly at Sherlock’s expression. “You’re impressed.”

“Oh yes.” Sherlock smiled. 

Irene narrowed her eyes, scrutinising Sherlock’s actions, whilst she got up abruptly from the sofa and strutted towards him. 

“As fascinating as that bit of information is, it still doesn’t explain why I am here?” She stood awfully close to him, waiting with a smirk poised on her lips and a raised eye brow waiting in anticipation.

“You’ve worked with him, you might be helpful.” 

“So you want to _use_ me Sherlock.” Irenestressed the word ‘use’ and winked at the Detective. The double meaning of her words does not escape Sherlock, but before he can retort she has continued. “Kant would say that’s immoral; using people as a means to an end. But then again, you don’t usually abide by social conventions, much less moral ones, do you?” She asked rhetorically, stepping close enough that her hand was able to reach out and toy with the buttons on his shirt. 

“ _Anyway_ Sherlock, I already told you everything I know about Jim Moriaty and his network, which admittedly was not a lot. I told you everything, there’s nothing left to add.” 

Sherlock didn’t respond, there was nothing to say, unless he wanted to admit the fact that he’d wanted her here in order to protect her. No he couldn’t say that, for that would be an act of sentiment and he really couldn’t go into that game with the Woman. 

 

A momentary silence falls over them, broken only by Irene and her smirk. “Oh you can say it Sherlock.” 

“Say what?” He replied, confused.

“That you missed me.” Her smile taunts him to disagree. 

“I didn’t miss you Woman.” Sherlock growled in his low baritone voice.

Irene’s hands continued to dance over the buttons his purple shirt-clad chest as she circled him, an an animal would around their prey. 

“Oh we both know you’re lying Mr Holmes.” 

“Why is that?” Sherlock said, desperately trying to remain unaffected by the Woman. 

Irene paused for a moment before pressing herself up against him and whispering in his ear. “Because I took your pulse.” 

“Reusing my own words. How unoriginal.” Sherlock commented, but he wasn’t annoyed. Instead, he pulled her closed to him, so her pelvis was touching his and Irene felt herself involuntarily gasp as his hands closed around her lower back. 

Death had changed him, even now over a year since he had returned he still maintained some of the confidence and mannerisms he had gained during his time away from London. 

Irene doesn’t retort merely holds his gaze, something that turns into a game of who can hold on the longest and not give in to their own desires. It is Irene that gives in first in this instance, for it has been over three years since she has been this close to this man and she can already feel her arousal growing, by merely standing this close to the man, their sexes brushing against one another. She gives in and her lips are soon attacking his, her finger nails scratching against his neck, grabbing ahold of the curls at the nape of his neck and making him gasp against her mouth, for he always had had sensitive hair follicles. As soon as she gives in, he responds almost immediatly, slipping his own tongue into her mouth, running it along her bottom lip and sucking slightly, he presses her body even tighter against him, putting pressure on his most intimate parts. 

They don’t utter a word as the part for breath, panting slightly but not moving away from one another. She goes to unbutton his shirt, her chest heaving with adrenaline and endorphins, and he tugs down the zipper of her cream Burberry skirt, letting it fall in one swoop to the floor before he slips his hand into her silk knickers. She’s got one more button to push through the whole when she feels his long delicate fingers slip through the elastic of her underwear and stroke her. She gasps at the unexpectedness of the gesture and pulls on his hair to grab his attention. “Bed.” She utters, transfixed by the boldness of his actions. 

Sherlock nods, slipping his hand out of her knickers and grabs ahold of her waist, guiding her backwards towards the four poster bed against the wall. She falls back as the back of her knees collided with the mattress and she hooks her legs around his waist, forcing him to fall with her. Somehow, they manage to rid themselves of most of their clothing without breaking contact from their lips. His shirt, socks and trousers are all mixed haphazardly with her own clothing on the marble flooring of the room. Once there is only bare skin left between the majority of their body, Sherlock pulls away from Irene’s lips and presses his lips to the skin in between her breasts. He never did understand other men’s obsession with women’s breasts, but now that he has the Woman he is beginning to. She bucks her body involuntarily into his as he removes her bra in order to gain enough access so that he can swirl his tongue across her erect nipple and suckle gently on the surrounding skin. 

 

However, it had been three years for both of them and slow passion in a bid to rediscover one another’s bodies is disregarded in favour of immediate gratification. She refrains from calling his name, forcing him to enter her now or face her wrath, instead she tugs on his curls to grab his attention and lines herself up so that all he has to do is to remove his own underwear and slowly descend into her. He is careful to remember to use one of his hands to rub her sex in order to stimulate her further, to be thoroughly sure that she would come when the time comes. 

 

When she does come she tightens around him and throws back her head, letting her moan escape her tongue in a long awaited manner. The moan itself is almost what tips Sherlock over himself, releasing himself very soon after into her. 

Panting, out of breath and still in a state of blissfulness, the pair only then broke apart, rolling off one another but still maintaining only minimal distance between one another. 

 

*

 

It was in the very early hours of the morning that Irene is rudely awoken by Sherlock’s phone. Years of hiding had made her a light sleeper and her ears are sensitive to even the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece on the other side of the room. 

“If you don’t get that I will answer it myself.” 

Irene threw her arm back and hit Sherlock on the chest, waking him on her third try. Unlike the Woman, Sherlock is a much deeper sleeper, for as he rarely does, when he actually succumbs to unconsciousness he does so very quickly and very deeply in order to compensate. He blinks back sleep as he hears the annoyance in The Woman’s threat, she is very cranky when being rudely awoken and he would not put it past her to pick up that phone herself. Something which would be very bad indeed as she was supposed to be a dead woman. Sleep fading from his lids, Sherlock scrambled to get the phone, reaching over the woman’s body to grab it from her bedside table (he doesn’t know how it got there in the first place) and pressing the button without looking at who was calling. He gets out of the bed, not fearing for his nudity for the woman has now rolled over and fallen back to sleep, the covers over her head in a bid to block out the noise he’ll be making on the phone. 

 

“Where the hell are you Sherlock?” John’s voice blares through the phone.

“Baker Street.” Sherlock lies quickly and convincingly, stepping across the room away from the bed. 

“No you’re not.” John replied “Because I’m at Baker Street and you’re not here.”

“Why are you there?” Sherlock asked. 

“Because Mrs Hudson was worried that you hadn’t come home yet, you said you were only getting milk!”

“I am getting milk.” Sherlock replied. 

“You said that 9 hours ago Sherlock.” John retorted with a voice full of concern. 

“I’m not high if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“That’s exactly what I’m worried about Sherlock. I know Moriaty’s back, but you can’t resort to getting high in order to make your brain work faster.” John sighed. 

“I’m fine John, I’m just busy.” Sherlock said, he looked up to see Irene, sitting up slowly on the four poster bed rubbing sleep from her eyes. She obviously hadn’t been able to get back to sleep due to his phone call. She looked up at high questioningly and Sherlock mouthed back through the darkness ‘John’ and Irene nodded. 

“Don’t tell Mycroft.” Sherlock’s voice was full of seriousness as he warned his best friend.  
“Why not?” John reasoned, still not quite reassured that his friend was safe. 

“Because John, I’m on a lead and he can’t know just yet.” He 

“Hmm okay, but come back soon, Mrs Hudson is worried.” John said, before biding his goodbyes. 

“Do you have to go?” Irene asked. 

“Yes.” Sherlock replied, grabbing his clothes from the marble floor where they’d been discarded that previous evening. “Apparently my absence has been noted.” 

“Okay.” Irene said simply, turning over and trying to get a few more hours of sleep in.

 

Sherlock nodded, finished getting the rest of his clothes on, refrained from going over to the bed and kissing the woman goodbye and left without another word. He’d see her within the next day or two, it was not like she was going anywhere.

 

*

 

He’s more careful in the time he spends away from then on. In the following two weeks following John’s phone call, he only stays at the St Pancras Hotel with Irene overnight twice. In reality there was no need for him to do so and yet he did so anyway. He makes sure he has credible leads that he can realistically use as cover during the fleeting moments he spends with Irene, particularly during the hours of the day when his absence from John is more noticeable. During their time together, Irene begins to understand that particularly now, when Sherlock is so stumped on Moriaty’s reappearance, that Sherlock needs an endorphins rush in order to realise his frustration and tenseness and so she supplies him with one, sex. With such a revelation it could have quite easily become a sort of routine, he comes, she gives him what he needs and he leaves. However, they don’t fall so easily into a pattern and instead sometimes after he’s slipped the keycard into the door, they merely sit in the armchairs across from one another, going through the evidence collected together. There’s been no big lead as of yet, although Irene has helped with suggestions of new leads. One time, after a particularly good suggestion, he couldn’t contain his excitement and kissed her full on her mouth in surprise. It surprised them both. It didn’t matter that the actual lead in the end didn’t amount to anything. 

 

However, they are not quite discreet enough. Under the advice of John, Mycroft sets a tail on Sherlock, who finds that in the past fortnight Sherlock has spend a few hours a day in the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel. At first, Mycroft thinks that he’s visiting a contact, one left over from his death, that may have insight into the Moriaty case and Mycroft is willing to wait for Sherlock to convey the information. But after the second night that Sherlock spends overnight at the hotel, Mycroft pays the Manager to provide more information as to who the curly haired man in seeing on his visits. The hotel security tapes are seized and Mycroft is left dumbfounded by what he sees; a supposedly dead dominatrix under the pseudonym Ana Wolfe. Sherlock had been seeing Irene Adler and, looking at the credit card records, had been paying for her £5000 per night room as well. 

 

_ We need to talk - MH  _

_ No - SH _

_ I know about Irene Alder - MH _

_ Baker Street now. - SH _

 

Mycroft doesn’t mind going with Sherlock’s terms and making the trip to Baker Street, for this is information that Mycroft almost certainly needs to be privy to. His mind is ablaze with the meaning of the situation, what is means for Irene Adler to be alive and the effects she’s had on his younger brother.

 

*

_ Where are you? The caviar is getting cold. - IA  _

Irene tapped in her text and sent it to Sherlock. Sherlock hadn’t been to visit in over two days and had promised he’d be at lunch to update her on his most recent findings in regards to the Moriaty case. 

 

“I was starting to think you weren’t going to come-“ Irene looks up from her phone as she feels the presence of a man sliding down to sit in the chair opposite but is shocked to find not Sherlock there but the elder Mr Holmes. 

She is shocked, but she hides her surprise very well, masking it with a slight smirk. “Whilst I did invite a Mr Holmes to lunch, I did not expect you to be the one bracing me with your presence Mr Holmes.” Irene smiled wryly at the older gentleman as he sat down. 

“Ms Adler.” Mycroft nodded at her. When it was obvious Irene was waiting for an explanation of Sherlock’s absence Mycroft continued. 

“My brother told me what happened-

“Karachi, New York or last night?” Irene asked seductively, her innuendo crystal clear to the older Holmes. 

“I am aware of the intimate nature of your meetings with my brother.” He is careful to say ‘meetings’ instead of relationship. 

“Oh are you now?” Irene laughed, masking her concern rather well. “I take it you weren’t pleased of my survival, much less me deflowering your poor brother.”

“Naturally, some dirt will always find itself under one’s fingernails, even after a good scrub.”

Not liking being likened to dirt, Irene pressed her lips together. “As thrilling as it is talking to you Mr Holmes, please state your intentions or leave, I really would like to enjoy my lunch without interference.” 

Nodding, Mycroft bows to her command, skipping the pleasantries in order to deal with the real reason why he is here, taking up his brother’s presence at lunch. “Leave.” Mycroft states simply. 

“No.” She retorts just as sharply as he.

“He doesn’t love you.” 

“Yes.” She means yes, as in she that agrees with Mycroft’s belief that Sherlock doesn’t love her, of course he doesn’t love her- love is far too mundane a word for what they have- but as soon as the word leaves her lips she knows that is not how Mycroft has interpreted her response. 

“Sherlock isn’t capable of loving you.” Mycroft adds with a sneer. 

“Oh, we both know that’s not true Mr Holmes.” She argues, just because she can

“Leave.” Mycroft ignores her statement and reiterates his earlier words. . 

“Why?” 

“Because you will hurt my brother Ms Adler and he will tear you shreds in retaliation. He will break you.” Mycroft adds seriously. “What do you think will happen? That he’ll continue to pay for you to reside in this hotel? That he’ll continue to see you, to sleep with you when he wants to on his own terms. He doesn’t love you Ms Adler, he loves himself. He would use you for the rest of your years and it still wouldn’t be because he loved you. He can’t love you.” Mycroft said through gritted teeth and yet Irene found herself slowly nod in agreement. 

It was true, she knew deep down that the last few days had been too good to be true, they couldn’t last in the long run and if they did this whole affair would never be on her terms, he was too volatile to be tamed and she doesn’t think she could cope not being in control. 

Mycroft notices the change in her expression, the hardening of her features as she slips on a mask but not before the softness of feelings of hurt swarm over her and the realisation that his words are true. Mycroft smiles in satisfaction.

“I took the liberty of paying for it myself.” Mycroft says, sliding over a single train ticket from St. Pancras to Paris for a few hours time. “Think of it as a goodbye gift Ms Adler; you escape with your life and I no longer have to deal with you as a threat to my country.” 

“ _Our_ country.” Irene couldn’t help but retort. 

“Not anymore, I do believe Ms Ana Wolfe is an American citizen.” Mycroft responded to her quip and Irene’s face fell. He was right. 

Mycroft smirked one last time and Irene couldn’t help but compare his expression and his capabilities to that of a snake. She never did like snakes. 

 

*

“She’s gone little brother.” There is a slight malice in Mycroft’s words as he convey’s Ms Adler’s departure to his younger brother over the phone. 

Sherlock hears the words but doesn’t really hear them, so to speak. He doesn’t respond to Mycroft’s words and instead hangs up. He doesn’t know what he is going to do but he gets up out of his armchair and leaves the flat without even putting his coat on, despite the harsh January cold. 

 

He returns to Baker Street an hour or so later, the cold having numbed most of the pain away, although he is still angry; angry at Irene for leaving him without a word and for Mycroft for his constant interference. Sherlock picks up the gun, that’s laying idly on the desk and fires it without looking several times at the wall. He feels much better for the sudden release of emotion it brings and his chest falls in a deep breath as he drops the gun back down. It is only then that he turns and is stunned at the sight of the woman, hair wet and wrapped in his own dressing gown, standing in the doorway of the Kitchen, having been disturbed by the sound of unexpected gunfire. 

 

“I thought you’d left.” _The ‘me’ hung in the air unspoken._ Sherlock said quietly after a while of staring at her with no response. He desperately tried to maintain unaffected and not let the hurt or relief seep into his words. 

“I rarely do as I’m told. You know I like to misbehave Sherlock.” She breathed the last words into his ear as she approached him. 

“Good,” was all he responded with.

“Although your brother does think that I left by train for Paris twenty minutes ago.” Irene smiled and the edges of Sherlock’s own lips curled up slightly at the thought of the Woman outmanoeuvring his brother. “I give him ten more until he realises I’m not on it.”

“He won’t come here straight away, he’ll check all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick first, I give him thirty.” Sherlock replied. 

“There’s a lot one can do in thirty minutes.” Irene said seductively with a cocked eyebrow and Sherlock chose not respond with words but to attack her neck with his lips. Irene’s eyes widened at the unexpected action and a slight moan pushed past her parted lips. 

“Mhmmm.” Sherlock said into the skin of her neck, before sucking on the skin some more, drawing the blood to the surface that would almost certainly leave a mark come morning. 

She snaked her hands over his shoulder and into his curls, pulling sharply, knowing it would make him gasp and forced his lips upwards so that she could capture theme with her own. As she slipped her own tongue into his mouth she felt the Detective trap ahold of her for dear life, asserting a tad too much pressure on her hip that it was likely to bruise. 

“I’m not going anywhere Sherlock.” Irene whispered, as their lips parted for breath. 

“Good.” Sherlock breathed after a moment of silence, into her still damp hair. 

 

Their feelings still went verbally unspoken, although it was obvious for any onlooker, which included -against his will, Mycroft Holmes- what it was exactly each party felt for one another. It was evident in their eagerness to undertake more intimate activities and it had been obvious in the way he had breathed that single word ‘Good’ that he was happy she would not be leaving him, as if he even feared her loss. For Sherlock Holmes was beginning to compile a list of pressure points that would have seemed unthinkable since Redbeard and his previous refusal to succumb to emotion and the absurdities of friendship. Sherlock Holmes was beginning to care. 

 


End file.
